Tigers Acquire Jacob Waguespack
The Tigers have acquired right-hander Jacob Waguespack from the Brewers for a player to be named later or cash considerations. Evan Woodbery of MLive Media Group was among those to pass along the news. The righty was just signed to a minor league deal last month and won’t immediately need a roster spot with the Tigers, unless his deal had some sort of opt-out or upward mobility clause.
Waguespack, 32, began the season with the Brewers on a minor league deal. Milwaukee granted him his release in early May. After exploring his opportunities for a little over a week, they re-signed him to a new minor league deal.
He has been having a good year on the whole, though with some important notes. He has tossed 21 2/3 innings over 16 Triple-A appearances, allowing 1.66 earned runs per nine. He has received some help from a .238 batting average on balls in play and 73.2% strand rate. His 16.5% walk rate is very high but he has also punched out 36.3% of batters faced. He has 105 2/3 innings of big league experience with the Blue Jays and Rays, posting a 5.11 ERA in that time. He struck out 18.9% of batters faced and gave out walks at a 10.1% clip.
The Tigers have been working through a huge number of pitching injuries this year, with nine arms currently on the big league injured list. Tarik Skubal, Justin Verlander, Casey Mize and Kenley Jansen are all expected back soon, which could lead to some roster shuffling.
As they sort things out in the coming days and weeks, Waguespack can give them some extra depth without taking up a roster spot, unless his minor league deal had some sort of contract provision that will lead to the Tigers adding him to their 40-man. If that is the case, Waguespack is out of options and will need to be added to the active roster.
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Orioles Sign Chadwick Tromp To Minor League Deal
The Orioles have signed catcher Chadwick Tromp to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Norfolk. He elected free agency earlier this week after being designated for assignment by Atlanta.
Tromp, 31, has seen scattered big league playing time over seven seasons. He has stepped to the plate 205 times in 79 games. That includes six games with Baltimore last year. On the whole, he has a .218/.225/.371 line in his career. He has generally received solid grades for his glovework but the light offense has kept him in a depth role. He has exhausted his options over the years, which has led to him bouncing on and off rosters, mostly as an injury replacement.
The Orioles currently have a bit of uncertainty in their catching mix. Adley Rutschman has a left hamstring issue while Samuel Basallo is dealing with a left wrist ailment. Sam Huff was added to the roster recently and has started the three most recent games, including tonight. Rutschman hasn’t appeared in a game since Sunday, when he served as the designated hitter. Basallo hasn’t started since Sunday, though he has made pinch-hit appearances in the past two games.
Tromp will give the O’s some non-roster depth while they navigate those injuries. If Rutschman or Basallo ultimately need a stint on the injured list, or both, Tromp could be added to the roster. If both manage to get healthy in the coming days, Huff is out of options and could end up designated for assignment. Huff was designated for assignment earlier this year and cleared waivers, which allowed the O’s to re-sign him to a new minor league deal after he elected free agency. But there is no guarantee that the same thing would happen again, so there’s sense in having Tromp around as a contingency for various scenarios.
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Pirates Place Oneil Cruz On Injured List
The Pirates announced that outfielder Oneil Cruz has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 8th, with left hand fourth and fifth metacarpal non-displaced fractures. Fellow outfielder Billy Cook has been recalled in a corresponding move. Cruz is expected to miss at least a month, per Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
It appears that the injury occurred on Saturday, as seen in this clip from MLB.com. Cruz was trying to score from first on a double when he was tagged on his hand. He hasn’t been in the starting lineup since then, though he did appear as a pinch runner on Sunday. He was in yesterday’s initial lineup but was scratched before game time with left hand discomfort. It appears that further testing found the fractures and he will be on the shelf about a month. The All-Star break is from July 13th to 16th, so perhaps Cruz will end up returning after that.
It’s a rough blow for the Pirates. Cruz is a flawed player since he strikes out a ton and he’s still a work in progress in the outfield, but all his tools are elite. He crushes the ball when he makes contact, in addition to having great speed and a strong throwing arm. He has 14 home runs this year, 21 stolen bases, a .264/.350/.472 line and a 128 wRC+. Even with his questionable defense, FanGraphs has credited him with 1.7 wins above replacement on the year.
The Bucs also lost Konnor Griffin to the IL a couple of weeks ago and Joey Bart landed on the shelf before that. Perhaps due to the injuries, the club has been in a bit of a slide, having lost four in a row. That has dropped them to 34-33 and just outside a playoff spot.
They will now have to try to climb out of that hole without Cruz. Jake Mangum has been covering center field for the past few days while Cruz has been hurt, so he seems likely to become the everyday guy there for the next month. He is a strong defender, so the Bucs should get a boost there, but the lineup should be worse. Mangum has a .293/.332/.359 line and 94 wRC+ in his career, even with a very high .345 batting average on balls in play.
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Angels Select Logan Porter
4:19pm: The Angels have officially announced Porter’s selection. Rivero was placed on the 10-day IL with a left hamate fracture and will require surgery, reports Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. Kochanowicz was transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot.
10:31am: The Angels are set to select the contract of catcher Logan Porter, reports Ari Alexander of 7News. He signed a minor league deal with them five days ago after choosing free agency over an outright assignment with the Giants. Porter hasn’t even suited up for a game with the Halos’ Triple-A affiliate yet, but he’ll jump right to the big leagues after backup catcher Sebastian Rivero exited last night’s game due to an apparent hand injury.
Porter, 30, is joining his third big league team. He has brief experience in the majors with both the Royals and Giants, for whom he’s totaled a combined 47 plate appearances. Porter is just a .184/.326/.289 hitter in that time, but he’s a .244/.359/.389 hitter in parts of five Triple-A seasons. He’s light on power but has walked at a gaudy 14.4% clip in more than 1200 Triple-A plate appearances.
Porter also gives the Angels a defensively sound backup to starting catcher Logan O’Hoppe. He’s thrown out a roughly average 22% of runners who’ve attempted to steal on him in the minors (33% dating back to last season) and drawn quality framing grades with slightly below-average marks for his blocking abilities, per Baseball Prospectus.
The Angels have already utilized four different catchers in 2026. Porter will be the fifth, joining the quartet of O’Hoppe, Rivero, Travis d’Arnaud and Omar Martinez. He has a full slate of minor league options remaining, so the Angels don’t necessarily need to designate him for assignment when d’Arnaud and/or Rivero get healthy. The Halos will need to open 26-man and 40-man roster spots for Porter, but that should be pretty straightforward. His selection to the majors seems to point to an IL trip for Rivero, and righty Jack Kochanowicz can be shifted to the 60-day IL after undergoing Tommy John surgery this week.
Mariners Place Matt Brash On IL With Lat Strain
The Mariners announced a series of roster moves today. Infielder/outfielder Miles Mastrobuoni has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list and right-hander Domingo González has been recalled from Triple-A Tacoma. In corresponding active roster moves, infielder Ryan Bliss has been optioned to Tacoma while right-hander Matt Brash has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a lat strain, retroactive to June 9th. To open a 40-man spot for Mastrobuoni, righty Yosver Zulueta has been designated for assignment.
This is the second time this year that Brash has landed on the IL because of his lat. Inflammation in that muscle put him out of action for roughly the first three weeks of May. He came back for a few weeks but has evidently strained the muscle this time. The M’s haven’t yet provided any updates about his expected absence but it seems fair to expect an even longer absence than when he was just dealing with inflammation.
For however long he’s out, it’s an unfortunate blow for the Seattle bullpen. He has been a key setup arm for them throughout his career, with a 3.06 earned run average in 185 1/3 innings. That includes an ERA of 0.54 ERA in 16 2/3 innings around his injuries this year. He wasn’t going to maintain that kind of run prevention all year but his longer track record shows what he is capable of.
Seattle is working with a short bullpen since they are running a six-man rotation right now, leaving them with just seven relievers while most other clubs have eight. The one upside of Brash’s injury is that it allows the M’s to bring up a fresh arm at a time when the relief group is fairly taxed. Andrés Muñoz, Jose A. Ferrer, Eduard Bazardo and Gabe Speier have all pitched in two of the past three days.
Zulueta, 28, has never pitched for the Mariners in the big leagues. He was acquired from the Reds in January and has been on optional assignment this year. He has thrown 20 1/3 Triple-A innings with a 5.75 ERA. That has come in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League but Zulueta hasn’t helped himself by walking 16.3% of batters faced. His 21.4% strikeout rate isn’t awful and his 56.9% ground ball rate is quite good but that poor control is hard to work around in any setting.
That has generally been the issue with Zulueta throughout his career. He has big stuff, with his fastballs both averaging in the upper 90s, but he hasn’t been able to harness it. He now has 203 1/3 Triple-A innings under his belt with a 3.94 ERA and 26.9% strikeout rate but a big 14.3% walk rate. He has only walked 10.9% of batters faced in the majors but in a much smaller sample of 23 2/3 innings.
He is now in DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Mariners could take as long as five days to explore trade interest, but they could also put him on waivers sooner than that. He can still be optioned for the remainder of this year, so perhaps some club with an open roster spot will be intrigued enough to stash him and hope he reins things in a bit more.
He has never been outrighted in his career and has less than three years of service time, meaning he does not have the right to reject an outright assignment. If he is passed through waivers unclaimed in the coming days, the Mariners could keep him as non-roster depth.
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Blue Jays Designate Connor Seabold For Assignment
The Blue Jays announced that right-hander Connor Seabold has been designated for assignment. That opens an active roster spot for Max Scherzer, who has been reinstated from the 15-day injured list to start tonight’s game. Toronto’s 40-man roster count drops to 38, as Yariel Rodríguez was also designated for assignment this week.
Seabold, 30, began the year with the Jays on a minor league deal. They had planned to have him serve as multi-inning depth piece until his velocity ticked up a bit in camp, which caused them to try him in more of a traditional relief role.
They couldn’t find a spot for him on the Opening Day roster, so he triggered an opt-out and signed with the Tigers. He posted a 3.45 earned run average for Detroit, spending about two months on the roster before getting squeezed into DFA limbo. At that time, the Jays had suffered a number of injuries and had room for Seabold, so they sent minor league pitcher Juanmi Vasquez to the Tigers in a DFA trade.
Seabold has made five appearances for the Jays in the past two weeks, allowing three earned runs in 3 1/3 innings. That gives him an 8.10 ERA in that tiny sample of work. Looking at his season as a whole, he has a 4.26 ERA in 19 innings. His 17.2% strikeout rate is subpar but his 8% walk rate and 42.9% ground ball rate are decent figures.
Ultimately, that’s not enough for him to keep his roster spot. The Jays have been getting healthier of late, with Tommy Nance, Dylan Cease and now Scherzer coming off the IL this week. Seabold is out of options, so he has been pushed into DFA limbo yet again. That can last as long as a week, though the waiver process takes 48 hours. The Jays could take five days to see if Seabold has any trade value but they could also put him on waivers sooner than that.
If Seabold were to clear waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency since he has a previous career outright. However, since he has fewer than five years of big league service time, he would have to forfeit his remaining salary commitments in exercising that right. His deal with the Tigers in March was a split deal which came with an $800K salary in the majors. The minor league salary on that deal was not publicly reported. Perhaps it’s healthy enough that he would not want to walk away from it and would accept an outright assignment.
The returns of both Cease and Scherzer give the Jays the healthiest rotation they’ve had in months. Their starting group has really been decimated by injuries this year. José Berríos, Cody Ponce and Bowden Francis are done for the year. Cease, Scherzer and Trey Yesavage all spent time on the IL for lesser injuries. Shane Bieber and Lazaro Estrada are currently on the IL. Jake Bloss is on the minor league IL, still working his way back from last year’s Tommy John surgery. Despite all the injuries, the Jays gave up on Eric Lauer earlier in the year, trading him to the Dodgers.
Due to all those issues, the Jays have effectively been running a three-man rotation while Cease and Scherzer have been out, with Yesavage, Kevin Gausman and Patrick Corbin being the three. The Jays have been patching things together around those three, with bullpen games featuring guys like Spencer Miles, Chad Dallas and Simeon Woods Richardson in bulk roles.
Ideally, things stay healthy from here with Cease, Scherzer, Gausman, Yesavage and Corbin in the rotation. Dallas has been optioned to the minors and can be in the Triple-A rotation while Miles and Woods Richardson are still in the big league bullpen. Bieber, Bloss and Estrada are on rehab assignments right now and could be factors in the future. On the position player side, catcher Alejandro Kirk is also rehabbing and could be back with the big league club soon.
The defending American League champions probably hoped to be better than 33-35 at this point in the season but probably don’t feel too bad about how they weathered all those injuries. The weak performance across the A.L. means they are tied for a Wild Card spot with the Rangers, despite their losing record. With the injury situation leveling off, perhaps they can post better results going forward.
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Dodgers Release Tyler Fitzgerald
The Dodgers have released infielder/outfielder Tyler Fitzgerald, per Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. He landed on the minor league injured list earlier this month, according to his transaction tracker at MLB.com. It appears the Dodgers wanted to remove him from the 40-man but injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers. He’ll be a free agent as soon as he clears release waivers, if he hasn’t already.
Not so long ago, Fitzgerald seemed to be on the verge of a breakout. With the Giants in 2024, he hit 15 home runs in 341 plate appearances and slashed .280/.334/.497 for a wRC+ of 132. Since he has the ability to play any spot on the infield or in the outfield, that was tremendously valuable. There were some yellow flags, since his .380 batting average on balls in play was helping him out a lot and he worked around a 31.7% strikeout rate, but it seemed like he could be a solid utility guy even if the offense backed up a bit.
Last year, even those who were expecting some regression were probably surprised by how far he fell. He finished the year with a .217/.278/.327 line and 72 wRC+, struggling enough to spend most of the second half on optional assignment in the minors. He also didn’t perform in Triple-A, slashing .246/.321/.379 for an 84 wRC+.
The Giants held him on the roster through the offseason but designated him for assignment in late March, just after the 2026 season began. He was traded to the Blue Jays for cash, with that club keeping him in the minors as depth. He hit .150/.150/.200 in a small sample of six Triple-A games before the Jays designated him for assignment and flipped him to the Dodgers in another cash deal.
With the Dodgers, he seemed to bounce back a bit, hitting .293/.400/.598 in 24 games for Triple-A Oklahoma City. Unfortunately, as mentioned, his progress was interrupted by injury. It’s not publicly known what injury Fitzgerald is dealing with but it has nudged him off the roster regardless. The Dodgers have Tommy Edman on a rehab assignment at the moment and he is currently on the 60-day IL, so perhaps this helps them to clear a spot for Edman’s return.
Regardless of the reason, Fitzgerald is sure to find a landing spot somewhere. Though he wasn’t good in the majors last year, his 2024 showing, his versatility and his recent form since joining the Dodgers are all intriguing. The nature of his injury will determine whether he can help any club in the short term or if he would be more of a long-term play at this point.
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Braves Place Ronald Acuña Jr. On Injured List
The Braves announced that outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a strained left hamstring. First baseman Rowdy Tellez has been selected to take his place on the active roster. Right-hander Jhancarlos Lara has been designated for assignment to open a 40-man spot for Tellez.
It’s already the second time this year that Acuña’s left hamstring has sent him to the IL. He spent a little over two weeks there from early- to mid-May. He has been back for a few weeks but the injury has flared up again and sent him to the IL once more.
Around the injuries, Acuña has been performing well but not up to his own standards, currently sporting a .251/.373/.421 line. That translates to a 125 wRC+, indicating Acuña has been 25% better than league average on the year, but he has a career wRC+ of 142 and was at 161 last year.
It doesn’t appear the injury is serious but Atlanta can afford to be cautious. They have the best record in baseball at 45-22. They have a nine-game lead over the Phillies in the National League East. Given their strong short-term position, they should be thinking about the long term and making sure Acuña is healthy for October.
They will still have Mike Yastrzemski and Michael Harris II in two spots. With Acuña on the shelf, Mauricio Dubón and Eli White will probably step in for more outfield work. If Dubón is spending more time on the grass, that could open up more shortstop playing time for Jorge Mateo or Ha-Seong Kim.
Tellez, 31, will probably just be serving as a bench bat. He has only been a first baseman throughout his career and won’t help in the outfield. Matt Olson is the club’s first baseman and hasn’t taken a day off in years. Dominic Smith is the regular in the designated hitter spot. He has a strong .292/.331/.458 line and 118 wRC+ on the year.
Dubón, White, Mateo and Kim are all right-handed hitters and Tellez is a lefty, so perhaps he will be called upon to pinch-hit for those guys in some key spots against tough righty arms. Tellez doesn’t have a strong walk rate against righties in his career but has done most of his damage with the platoon advantage, leading to a .236/.299/.452 career line against righties. He signed a minor league deal with Atlanta in the offseason and has been hitting well in Triple-A this year, with a .259/.367/.483 line, including a 308/.406/.608 slash against righties.
Lara, 23, was added to Atlanta’s roster in September of last year but never got into a game. He was optioned a few days later and has been on optional assignment for all of this season as well. He has elite stuff, with his fastballs averaging in the upper-90s, but atrocious control. He has walked 17.5% of batters faced in his minor league career, which is about double a normal rate. That includes an ugly 33.3% walk rate in 15 Double-A appearances this year, helping him produce an 8.22 earned run average.
He now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so Atlanta could take as long as five days to explore trade interest. If Lara garners any interest, it would be as a project, since the results certainly aren’t there right now. But since he has natural talents and still has options, perhaps some club with roster space will look to stash him. If he is passed through waivers unclaimed, he would stick in Atlanta’s system without using up a roster spot.
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Giants Designate Will Brennan For Assignment
The Giants announced that left-hander Reiver Sanmartin has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list. Right-hander Tristan Beck has been optioned to Triple-A Sacramento as the corresponding active roster move. To open a 40-man spot, outfielder Will Brennan has been designated for assignment.
Brennan, 28, was a free agent this offseason after being non-tendered by the Guardians. The Giants scooped him up by signing him to a major league deal, a split contract that paid him $900K in the majors and $400K in the minors. He is still optionable and the Giants have made use of that, as he has already been optioned four times this year.
He has performed well in the minors but not the majors, which continues a trend for him. He has been sent to the plate 23 times at the big league level this year, with just two hits, both singles. Dating back to his time with Cleveland, he now has a .263/.301/.365 line in 889 major league plate appearances. That leads to an 86 wRC+, indicating he has been 14% below league average offensively.
He has taken 117 plate appearances at the Triple-A level this year and produced a .364/.393/.467 line and 126 wRC+. That’s propped up by an unsustainable .396 batting average on balls in play but is nonetheless a much more encouraging performance than what he has done in the big leagues. He now has 745 Triple-A plate appearances dating back to 2022 with a .324/.368/.464 line and 122 wRC+, though that is bolstered by a high .355 BABIP.
Brennan has some wheels and could have some appeal as a speed-and-defense depth outfielder, though the bat is more of a question mark. Even when he puts up good marks in the minors, he does so with a low walk rate and generally relies on batted-ball luck.
He now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Giants can take as long as five days to see if there’s any trade interest. Since he is still optionable, perhaps he would hold some appeal to a team looking for extra outfield depth.
If he were to clear waivers, he would have the right to elect free agency but probably wouldn’t exercise that right. Players with at least three years of service have the right to reject an outright assignment in favor of the open market but have to forfeit their salary commitments unless they have at least five years of service. Brennan is just a bit over that three-year line and would have to walk away from the remaining money on his deal if he elected free agency.
Sanmartin, 30, was claimed off waivers from the Reds in November. He suffered a hip flexor strain in March that was expected to cost him about three months, a timeline that has proven to be pretty accurate. He logged 84 1/3 innings with the Reds from 2021 to 2025, allowing 5.66 earned runs per nine. His 19.2% strikeout rate and 11% walk rate in that span were subpar but he induced grounders on 53.6% of balls in play. He’ll be making his debut as a Giant as soon as he gets into a game.
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Johan Rojas To Undergo Elbow Surgery
The Phillies announced that outfielder Johan Rojas recently experienced some elbow soreness while ramping up to return from his ongoing suspension. Imaging revealed a tear of his ulnar collateral ligament, which will require surgical repair involving an internal brace. The expectation is that he will be ready for spring training 2027. He is currently on the restricted list
2026 was already shaping up to be an unfortunate season for Rojas. Back in March, he received an 80-game suspension after testing positive for the performance-enhancing substance Boldenone. That was going to wipe out the first half of his regular season and, like all players suspended for PEDs, render him ineligible for the postseason.
After receiving that suspension, his best-case scenario would have been for him to have a strong second half, but now that’s off the table as well and he will miss the entire 2026 campaign. He is currently on the restricted list. Once his suspension is up, the Phillies can put him on the 60-day injured list, or perhaps cut him from the roster by designating him for assignment or releasing him.
Rojas had a strong debut with the Phils in 2023. He was already known to have speed and defensive abilities, but he then put up a .302/.342/.430 line in his first 164 plate appearances. That wasn’t entirely sustainable, as he had a .410 batting average on balls in play, but it was a welcome development for the Phillies nonetheless. Thanks to that offense, his 14 steals and strong glovework, he was credited by FanGraphs with 1.4 wins above replacement in just 59 games.
His production tailed off from there. He could still swipe some bags and run the ball down on the grass but he hit just .237/.279/.312 over the 2024 and 2025 seasons. That seemingly caused the Phils move on from the idea of Rojas being an everyday player. They acquired Harrison Bader at the 2025 deadline. He became a free agent after the season but they essentially handed the 2026 center field job to Justin Crawford in the most recent offseason.
With Crawford, Adolis García and Brandon Marsh set to be the regular outfield in 2026, Rojas was lined up to either be in a fourth outfielder role or sent to the minors. Between the suspension and this surgery, he will instead be a total non-factor for the year. If he holds onto his roster spot through the winter and gets healthy, he could be back in consideration for those kinds of depth roles next year. Garcia is an impending free agent but the Phils will presumably look to address that spot before the 2027 season begins.
For now, the Phils have Edmundo Sosa and Steward Berroa as their bench outfielders, backing up the trio of Marsh, Crawford and Garcia. Marsh is the only one of those three having a good season, so it’s possible they look to shake things up at the deadline.
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